digiBIZ—
Amazon.com, Inc. has reached an agreement to acquire Audible Inc., the leading online provider of premium digital spoken word audio content that specializes in digital audio editions of books, newspapers and magazines, television and radio programs and original programming. Through its websites in the United States and United Kingdom, and alliances in Germany and France, Audible.com offers more than 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from well-known authors such as Stephen King, Thomas Friedman, and Jane Austen, and spoken word audio content from sources including The New Yorker, Fresh Air and Charlie Rose. Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon.com will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Audible.com for $11.50 per share and will assume Audible.com’s outstanding stock-based awards, for an aggregate transaction value of approximately $300 million which includes Audible.com’s cash and short-term investments at closing.
digiBIZ—Over the next several years, growth in the personal robotics market will create significant revenue opportunities for key enabling components including processors, microcontrollers, sensors, and servos. By the year 2015, ABI Research forecasts that these major product categories will reach a collective $12 billion in worldwide revenue. The number of major components used in personal robotics will increase significantly over the next few years, which will result in dramatically lower prices. PC-powered processors will enter the market in small quantities during 2009, but will grow to over 21 million shipments in 2015. Currently, microcontroller use in personal robotics is in the millions; sensor shipments for personal robots will increase to over 2 billion by 2015; and actuators, servos, and manipulators will grow almost 100-fold by 2015 as well. Major market drivers include consumers’ need to reduce time and effort spent performing routine chores, along with the desires for increased entertainment and even companionship. ABI Research’s recent report, Personal Robotics, covers the market for consumer robots and major components used by personal robots. It examines key industry drivers in the robotics space and in software development platforms that will become critical to the development of this market. More info….
digiCREATION—Final Draft, Inc. publishes Final Draft, the #1-selling scriptwriting software, and the company has just announced the launch of its 9th Annual Big Break International Screenwriting Contest which opened February 1st and closes June 15th. This year, Big Break has partnered with CineStory, a non-profit organization that provides new screenwriters with opportunities to work with committed industry professionals to raise the level of their craft and career marketability. CineStory’s commitment to helping writers improve their craft and gain access into the industry aligns itself perfectly with the philosophy of Final Draft’s Big Break. This partnership allows Final Draft to add to its Big Break contest prize package a mentoring component which sets this contest apart from a sea of others… while Big Break has always awarded its finalists with substantial cash and prizes, including industry meetings for the top three winners, the contest has never before offered a year-long industry mentorship as part of its grand-prize winner package. CineStory will also invite the top three Big Break finalists to participate in CineStory’s annual retreat in Idyllwild. At the CineStory retreat, writers meet with several retreat mentors to discuss their script submissions and possible personal pathways to a professional life in the business. At the conclusion of the three-day retreat, the Big Break contest winner will select two industry mentors with whom they will work for one year. Big Break offers early registration incentives. Electronic submissions encouraged.
digiCREATION—
From the creative folk at Red Giant Software comes the now-shipping Magic Bullet Frames v1.0. You can ensure your video has the look of film at low cost and the software is compatible with Final Cut Pro, Motion, or Premiere Pro. Start the process with interlaced video. Now, apply the Magic Bullet Frames’ plug-in within any of the supported apps and receive, in return, high-quality frame rate conversions possessing the look of true 24p film… and the conversion is done quickly, as well. Included in this tool is letterboxing and line offset controls, which allows you to easily create mattes as well as enabling image adjustment inside the area of the letterbox.
digiDELIVERY—Streambox offers news gathering and video transport solutions for all real-time and store-and-forward broadcast and broadband applications.The company is announcing for the 2008 NAB Show the release of a fully rugged version of its industry-leading Portable Video Transport system for mobile news gathering, emergency response, and armed forces operations. The rugged encoder is ideal for use in environments where extreme temperatures are the norm and exposure to adverse weather and rough handling is expected. It meets or exceeds MIL-STD-810F. The innovative video transport solution utilizes the Streambox ACT-L3 codec and advanced compression technologies widely used by news organizations worldwide. The system is integrated into one super-compact portable device supplied with a sturdy carry handle for easy transportation and featuring an extended battery life. Also making its debut is the Streambox Mobile Software Encoder. This is a software solution for video streaming of breaking news and events via broadband. The Mobile Software Encoder features the same Streambox ACT-L3 advanced proprietary compression technologies widely used by news organizations, government agencies, and other organizations and individuals. The Mobile Software Encoder extends news gathering capabilities and is a software-based solution ported to a variety of mobile devices. The Streambox Mobile Software Encoder transports broadcast video over Wi-Fi and 3G networks for real-time as well as store-and-forward news coverage.
digiDELIVERY—With NAB 2008 just around the corner, the number of new product announcements can tend to be somewhat overwhelming. Some require immediate attention, such as Volicon‘s Observer for video monitoring and logging and for delivering the highest quality viewing experience. At NAB, Volicon will debut a new version of the Observer HD, the broadcast industry’s first product to provide high definition signal logging and monitoring capabilities. The Observer HD provides support for Dolby 5.1 sound and enables recording on two or four channels, with storage for 30 days or longer. With version 2.0, Volicon will be extending the Observer HD’s Dolby 5.1 capabilities to support capture of SDI content. Other new features include HD capture of CEA-708 closed captions (EIA-608 transport extraction), support of bit rates higher than 3 Mbps, alerting support through SNMP, and GPI contact closure upon alert. And there’s a new Quality Assurance Module for the Observer that automatically detects a wide variety of audio and video errors including macro-blocking, or pixelization of the image due to video stream errors or overcompression. The Quality Assurance Module also performs quality checks for such errors as black or frozen screen, low-volume or missing audio, and missing closed captions. Volicon is also introducing Observer Edge, a cost-effective video monitoring solution for remote and unmanned “dark” stations. The Observer Edge offers a subset of the core Observer functionality that enables MSOs and station groups to ensure quality of service for remote transmitters, translators, or stations running in automated mode. A prototype of the company’s Producer will also be present, this being an optional module for the Observer that enables broadcasters to capture and repurpose content in a variety of industry formats for outside use. The Producer provides operators with an easy-to-use platform for browsing aired content that has been recorded by the Observer and searching for and retrieving the desired video segment down to the individual frame level.
digiCREATION—Zaxcom, Inc. designs and manufactures pro audio equipment for the TV and film industries. Zaxcom engineered the first digital wireless microphone and the first wireless microphone to feature integrated audio recording (patent pending). The company has a number of new products they’ll be debuting at the 2008 NAB Show. First up is their new Fusion high-resolution audio mixer and recorder, optimized for use in reality television, surround recording, and ENG applications. The mixer replaces the multiple mixers and portable recorders that normally would be required to support mixing and recording of audio to camera via RF link or hardwired cable. Fusion can mix together 16 inputs to eight output busses for recording up to eight tracks. The company will also demo their full line of wireless systems, including the popular TRX900, TRX990, TRX900AA digital wireless microphone transceivers, and the TRX800 handheld wireless recording system. These systems are optimized for use in ENG and other broadcast applications; reality television productions; concert, presentation, and theater settings; and in any other audio production that requires mobility, premium sound quality, and superior performance. And their highly anticipated Deva 16, a new 16-track hard disk audio recorder designed for use in film and television production, will also be on display. With eight hardware faders plus an integrated hard drive, DVD-RAM, and CompactFlash memory card slot, the Deva 16 is a complete, one-package solution for audio recording, mixing, and effects. Zaxcom’s Deva 16 provides fault-tolerant, multidisk recording from eight analog mic/line inputs with 48-V phantom power, four analog line inputs, and eight digital inputs. A 16-channel, 24-bus digital mixer is built-in to the unit, providing EQ, notch filter, compressor, and delay functions on each channel—Pompton Plains, New Jersey
digiBITZ
- As consumers, we like to obtain our “stuff” immediately—and Cablevision Systems, in combo with Popcorn Home Entertainment—plan to do all in their power to see that such demands are met. According to an Erik Gruenwedel bylined article in the online Reuters news service, on February 4th a new service is gonna debut from both that will allow cable subs to watch not just VoD, but newly released flicks. Read the article.
- Anne Becker of The Business of Television online publication reports the National Geographic Channel is gonna launch a web site offering broadband videos with six genre subdivisions: Animals & Nature, History & Events, People & Places, Science & Technology and Nat Geo Wild. Supported by ads, the site was started, apparently, to make video navigation easier. Read more…
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